Small Businesses Want 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, But Won't Pay Too Much For It

There are lots of interesting tidbits in a new study of small-business broadband Columbia Telecommunications Corporation, which conducted a nationwide survey on behalf of the Small Business Administration, but the really significant finding is that respondents won't pay all that much for 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps connections.

And price resistance is stubborn. Even when the price for such a service is just 10 percent to 20 percent higher, businesses are significantly less likely to switch to a 100-Mbps service from what they currently buy.

As you might guess, if small businesses are hesitant to spend 10 percent to 20 percent more to get 100 Mbps, they are even more hesitant to spend more for an extremely fast Internet connection of 1 Gbps. This is especially true for prices that are 40 percent or more higher than their current prices.

If you asssume the average prices now range between $70 a month to $124 a month, then survey respondents show significant resistance to paying much more than $84 to $149 a month for 100 Mbps service, or $98 to $174 for 1-Gbps service.

This graphic might confuse you. The taller the bars, the less likely the respondent is to take the action indicated. The tallest bar, a score of "5" would mean "highly unlikely" to take the action.

A score of "1," shown by a shorter bar, would indicate strong willingness to take the action.

The point is that small business users aren't willing to spend much more to upgrade from their current level of service to 100-Mbps service.

The most surprising finding is that even the same prices, or prices 10 percent 5to 20 percent lower do not cause small business respondents to become certain of switching. Scores around "3" indicate a "maybe, maybe not" attitude.

No matter what these respondents say about wanting higher speeds, they don't appear to be willing to pay much of anything for it.

read the full report here